Central Asia
In the Middle Ages, after the Seljuq victory over the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV, many Byzantine Greeks were taken as slaves to Central Asia. The most famous among them was Al-Khazini, a Byzantine Greek slave taken to Merv, then in the Khorasan province of Persia but now in Turkmenistan, who was later freed and became a famous Muslim scientist.
Read more about this topic: Greek Muslims
Famous quotes containing the words central and/or asia:
“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance (1590)
“Incarnate devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)